Saturday, September 29, 2012

Yesterday, I am driving around and I felt spent--hypo this&hyper that--so I stopped off for some fried fish and today I could hardly move.. Still, I willed myself, I wheeled myself and the food wagon [a 2' x 3' pull wagon] through this afternoon's harvesting, did my medicine wheel, which transformed my mind but not my muscles, bones & joints.

Got back to the farmhouse and Steff cooked up our own garden stir-fry veggies with brown rice, and -- ain't it somethin -- I feel great all over.

I am organizing different Tai Chi classes, of which 100% of the proceeds are for the Vermont Foodbank. The first 10-week course will begin Tuesday, October 16th, to be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church in St. Johnsbury.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

When folks ask me 'how is da farming going?', I sometimes tell em "for me, for me--farming is like theater of the absurd--like being in love--being in the moment and simultaneously aware I have very little control how our crops are going to turn out." Time line lingo--in time and through-time [big picture--details]. One month, a drought and next month a deluge. All dried up and probably pretty soon--washed away. Still, not to be analyzed, I am experiencing "I am the soil". Yesterday, with a boatload of chores in front of me, I felt the prompting "Now, right now, disc your next forage crop field, now". Now? Made no analytic sense whatsoever--the drought has compacted that already deeply contracted clay beyond reclamation for this year... still, Steff was busy re-engineering a newly discovered well [out by our commercial crop field]--never give up, give in, OK]; so Steff told me not to interrupt her. so I jumped on the old Case tractor and got the newly repaired [thanks to my three stooges-Marx brothers ingenuity] disc harrow, held together with farm chains -- onto the compacted field. And the field opened right up and I got down pretty deep. Just absurd... Chuang Tse butterfly dreaming: the mother earth is dreaming of us& we are dreaming into the mother. Extreme yin and extreme yang are the same. Frozen, stuck thought forms dissolving into, transmuting into prayerful tobacco smoke offerings of just deep enough for me & 'mine'-- gratitude.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Bringing in some of the harvest before the frost tonight: corn, bok choy, squash, fingerlings, beets, watercress, and few tomatoes still to be gently saved, etc.
Covering yesterday's broadcast seeding of winter rye.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Yesterday, as I was plowing and preparing a 300' x 60' area of soil to be annexed into our 'commercial West Pasture garden' (now totaling over an acre), riding on my tractor joyously for several hours (hard work driving the big go-cart--yup), the what-was-called-weather changed dramatically from sweater cold rain, to humid, to rain. I found myself praying, giving thanks, blessings, and the mists cleared in the West -- revealing a rainbow in front of me and this old tractor. I believe the sensation I felt was in the innermost core of my heart.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

We are harvesting more crops than I know what to do with at the momen, and weeding the beds that we will soon plant garlic and bibb lettuce in.
For this summer growing season we quadrupled the size of our 'commecial garden', and now we have doubled even that -- laying in forage radish seed, winter rye and forage turnips. Soil is magical, the land, sky, hills, seasons beautiful.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Farmer casts some seedsFarmer casts some seedsHigh, hoe -- the ... aw nuts...Broadcast forage seeds onto newly reclaimed gardensStomped in -- to differing rhythmsWho thought of the label 'legs'?
Halfway into the dance I was drumming the soil -- motherdrum -- with my own two Tao prongs"It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississiipi mud"...

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Blessed rain all night. Mist covers the farm early a.m.Yesterday, as I spent my second day shoveling cow manure out from the 40'-50' rental trailer, Moose appeared once -- for what I would like to believe was a deliberate 'how d'ya do' -- from our very deep woods in the Southwestern section of our farm. This is his second week here and his prints are all over 'moose bog' -- located in the Southeast section of our farm. I was honored to have him as a guest. It was as if he knew I was preparing the clay soil for a seeding of forage turnips, which I imagined would be to feed our longears for the winter ...